A very good '70s crime flick with a great cast and a lot of violence.
You can almost call it a Blaxploitation drama.
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Nick "A hell of a great guy! NOT!"
yeah the soundtrack nominates it - still it isn't strictly so limited..
share This is a Blaxploitation classic. Very entertaining!
It's a classic. This movie should be more well known.
yeah hey, guys, what if I said it wasn't Blaxploitation? can someone tell me what blaxploitation films actually are? Not just movies with black actors, surely?
here are a few things to think about:
1. Racism is a central theme here, but it is not presented from one side - in most blaxploitation pictures the racism is two dimensional, and the heroes are black characters who struggle to overcome racist adversity. In this movie, no one character is portrayed as perfect in the context of the racist climate of the city, or times, or whatever, and many of them learn something over the course of the film.
2. Like I said, Bobby Womack's soundtrack nominates it, but if Curtis Mayfield or Isaac Hayes make a soundtrack for a movie, does that force it into the blaxploitation category? Just a question, the answer might be yes ;)
3. Pope was the closest thing the movie had to a hero. Blaxploitation films tend to (probably objectively) heroify some of the black characters, but here I didn't get that feeling, he's just a man with integrity - not a black man with integrity.
All in all I'd say this was more a response to the popularity of the so-called blaxploitation formula at the time, and actually pre-dates most of the most famous examples of the genre - I wouldn't want to call it blaxploitation. It's an "urban drama" which explores the violence of racism and the death of the "old ways," without condemning those old ways in overly strong or unfair terms.
I saw this in the theaters when it came out. Funny, I remember it as being 1971, not 1972. It was actually a pretty good movie. I came looking for it here because Tony Franciosa died today. He played the mobster in this movie.
Blaxploitation doesn't ipso facto mean "bad movie." I consider Shaft (the original) to be the best of the genre.
I don't know about this one. I mean I like the film but it doesn't have the same blaxploitation feel to it at least not in a way that shaft and foxy brown have. I didn't even think that the film was a blaxploitation film. But when you think about it i guess it might be. Still I think it's a borderline case. Quinn is great and so is Richard Ward.
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I agree. I dont necessarily consider this movie a Black- Exploitation movie. But any 70's movie where the Black "stereotype" is prominent(pimps, drug pushers, and prostitutes), its a Blaxploitation movie. Now its politically correct to "pay homage" to these movies by showing them, and re-issuing them for the masses. Hey, these movies were actually very good
shareBlaxploitation, western, comedy, horror, or what have you this is a damn good movie that pulls no punches in telling it's story. I'm by no means a movie scholar but I do see why the 70's was considered the decade of the autuer when it came to American film because it was between the time when movie restrictions were lifted and before corporate sacrifice to the gods of the marketplace caused major movies to be dumbed down with an uplifting ending.
The acting and the nuances of character are what makes this film a classic for me. Look at how the character Joe who lost his nerve during the robbery that sets everything off struggled with it the rest of the movie. The way Doc Johnson plays all sides to get the Mob and the cops off his back and remove D'Salvio and Litteli at the same time. The menace that creeps off Doc's main henchman every scene he's in because every time I watch the movie the first thing that pops into my mind when he's on-screen is this term: That's a baaaddd dude.
Great movie all around with a brutal ending. If I have a complaint about the whole thing I just wonder why Jim, Joe, and Henry J didn't just keep driving to Laguardia and fly out of New York. That would have been a short move but more plausible in real life because the Harlem portrayed in this movie was a rough place they should have been happy to leave. Oh well, no matter how good it was, it was still a movie that I enjoy every time I pop it in.